


Fate/Grand University

by en passant (corinthian)



Category: Fate/Grand Order
Genre: College AU, Gen, mundane AU
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-03-20
Updated: 2016-03-20
Packaged: 2018-05-27 22:49:52
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,913
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6303232
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/corinthian/pseuds/en%20passant
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>the most self-indulgent of AUs.</p>
<p>Told in parts and fragments.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

The Cast... as of now....

All of the profile art is official Chibichuki art or Capsule Servant art

  



	2. Nero & Siegfried

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> College AU: start with non-college backstory.
> 
> Well, that's how it goes sometimes.

When Nero was a child, her uncle gave her a baseball glove. She remembers him as a man with a severe look but a joyous laugh. He always threw the baseball a little too hard, but encouraged her and taught her how to both bunt and hit the ball out of the park.

Her uncle doted on her mother, she remembers that too. He was always bringing gifts, taking care of the little chores around the house that needed to be done. It was something she tries to remember fondly — he didn't trust handymen, hired hands, contract work, if there was something broken at their house he'd fix it for them. Nero remembers that she loved her uncle very much.

When she was ten, her uncle lost his mind. They don't know what happened, and Nero will always remember it as a great tragedy and if she had to, point to this being the time that her mother changed as well. It was very stressful. The uncle she remembers loving baseball become a man who loved nothing but inflicting pain on others. Nero and her mother hid from him on a tirade, once, pressed to the back wall of the large walk-in closet as he skulked through the house holding a hammer calling for his little sister, his beautiful little sister to come out.

The last time she saw her uncle he ran his hand through her hair and told her that he was so glad she had grown up beautiful. He called her by her mother's name.

* * *

Siegfried was an agreeable child by nature. He rarely cried as a baby and if he fell down he would pick himself up. His father was indulgent and permissive, didn't believe in curfew or limiting the imagination and had a strong weakness for medival romance stories.

All of those stories came with noble sacrifice, women in towers and lakes and dragonslaying. Cautionary tales of vain heroes who fell because of their pride or knights who were too greedy and selfish, or too brash.

Giving, moderation, being kind. Those were the lessons that he learned growing up — he was a child who was keenly aware of other people's needs. His lonely father, their home that was always well furnished but he had no siblings. The disparity between his own life and others.

Some people would call it precocious, he was such a serious little child. Cashiers and floorworkers at stores always commented to his father and his father, in good-nature, would laugh and say, my little old man. Siegfried's my most reliable best friend.

(When he was very, very young his father used to say that his mother was in a far away tower and that if they worked hard enough and were strong enough and good enough, they could go rescue her someday. When he grew older, he realized the truth and they put that story away.)

* * *

Siegfried's house was single level, his bedroom was on the far west end and got far too hot in the summer afternoon and far too cool in the winter mornings, but he didn't mind it so much. On clear nights it was easy to climb out of his window and use the wall trellis for footholds to get up onto the roof and starwatch. Though, in honestly, what normally happened is Nero came over and they went up to the roof and had snacks and didn't watch the stars at all. But they always intended to.

So when she knocks on his window, the third day of June, the summer before their first year of college, he just opens it and stands aside waiting for her to climb in. When they were both much shorter, they used to keep a step stool in the bushes, but after Siegfried hit his growth spurt (it had been a little embarrassing, in a single week he outgrew all of his clothes and had been aching for weeks after that) Nero had insisted they didn't need it.

She never really hit her growth spurt so there is always a telltale knock of her shoes against the siding of the house as she pulls herself in. It's unnecessary, but she likes to do a little tumble on the floor and sprawl out and look at his ceiling that still has the glow-in-the-dark stars they put up almost a decade ago.

This time, a trash bag comes through the window with her.

"Siegfried!" She says, from the floor.

"Hey," he says, shutting the window.

It's late, but Siegfried's dad knows Nero and is used to these antics too. The last time, when she had visited and it had been well past midnight, his dad had just asked if they wanted a snack. The three of them had split leftover pizza and coke and watched infomercials until the sunrise and then all gone out to watch that as well.

"I got something amazing today! Yeah, you won't believe it!" Nero excitedly tells him, sitting up and dumping the garbage bag out. Inside are clothes. Red clothes, gold clothes, sequin jackets, the ugliest pair of pants Siegfried has ever seen in his life.

"Wow, went all out." He has to say — on one hand, he's definitely excited _for_ her. Nero's mother had some kind of personal vendetta against color and 'fun' clothes. Nero always wore the same three outfits to school — the equivalent onf black and white Sunday's best. Her hair was always down when she arrived at school, carefully arranged in a sleek side part with a bow that she always had to replicate before she went home — a task she usually made Siegfried help her with, since as soon as she could she pulled her hair back in a ponytail or braid.

"What do you think? This one? Or this one!" Nero shrugs out of her shirt — a delicate looking off-white blouse with ornate flower embroidery — and into a garish red lace monstrosity and then into a rhinestone studded tunic.

". . . bright," Siegfried comments. But at her expectant silence he continues, "The red is more. . . girly. The other one is more like you."

Nero laughs. "I knew it! Ha! See, we have the same taste after all. Yes, this is the one that I will wear tomorrow."

"What else do you have?" Siegfried asks, sits down on the floor and waits. It's not exactly ideal, but he can't be frustrated by it either.

"Oh! This and this — " She changes from one outfit to the next, each pose more dramatic and somewhat obscene. He gives his opinions as honestly as possible. For Nero, Siegfried is the only person who she can ask this of. And for Siegfried, her outstretched hand has pulled him along for what feels like most of his life.

When they met, Siegfried was a quite child. He was the kid that everyone asked to push them on the swing but never got to be pushed. If someone asked him for his afternoon snack he would hand it over easily and not complain if he was hungry later.

So, when Siegfried was sitting on the swing and a little girl walked up to him — dressed in some of the fanciest clothes he'd ever seen in his young life, pristine white stockings and a crisp black dress — and demanded he get off and let her use the swing, he did as she asked.

But as he had gone to walk away, she had grabbed his hand.

"You." She said.

"Me." He said.

"Don't let people push you around! Have some pride!" She said. "Since I'm always right, listen to me!" It was such a strange thing for a child to say, but she seemed so confident.

"Ah — well you wanted it. . ."

"You're in trouble, someone is going to really mess you up! I'll take responsibility for you." Just like that she had decided they were friends and because Siegfried was an agreeable boy he went along with it. "From now on, we're best friends."

Being friends with Nero meant that she would defend him to the death even if he didn't care. It was a new and odd experience for Siegfried — when people demanded things of him, Nero would burst in and defend him. If someone wanted his snack she would bargain with them or tell them to pick on someone else. If someone wanted him to push them on the swing she would demand they push Siegfried first.

He had never, really, been put first by anyone else like that. Even his father, who was a good man but very busy, didn't have the same devotion to ensuring that he was treated above all others. But every day Nero told him something she liked about him, defended him and even when she was upset or mad at him — said he was weak or spineless — she was sure he could become someone wonderful, strong and perfect.

It was odd, really, because if he were to think on his primary school years, they were dominated by Nero's voice yelling something like, "Don't pick on small weak Siegfried!" Which had been somewhat insulting, but also was a fond memory nonetheless.

In middle school she dragged him to track and field — and then insisted they each pick up a sport so they could get out of school at the same time. Siegfried ended up with soccer and Nero with softball. She spent the entire year complaining about how girls' softball isn't the same as baseball.

In high school, Siegfried tried basketball and Nero tried soccer but by their second year they both agreed that organized sports weren't for them. Siegfried found the cutthroat tryouts not to his taste — especially when he made the team but then had to walk past all of those who had wanted it more than him but hadn't been able to make it. Nero, on the other hand, got into a fight and got red carded in her first game.

She insisted, though, that they stay fit. No slacking if they wanted to be perfect people. He couldn't really say that perfection was his goal, but didn't feel strongly enough about it to try to dissuade her. So they did weightlifting and running. Nero was more of a sprinter but learned to pace herself, especially once Siegfried hit his growth spurt and his legs seemed impossibly long.

He learned, Nero was always going to be the one who got into the fight first. She had a temper and was quick to insult others. She was arrogant and flashy and had a strong competitive streak. But she was also the one who offered help and support first, she took matters of the heart very seriously and dated more (and had her heartbroken more) than anyone he knew. She was one-of-a-kind and he didn't really know what he would do without her.

It was Nero who dragged him along to parties he wasn't invited to, who got them fake IDs and knew all the party stores that didn't look too closely. Siegfried always thinks that it was Nero that made him popular in high school — he doesn't quite have the perspective to see for himself — and he always thinks that it's her strong will that helped him develop his own.

She wrote, every year in his yearbook: Nothing is more Beautiful Than Living Life to the Fullest!


End file.
